Websites

Website guide

The Holocaust is a subject well served by the Internet, with a
good number of quality websites dealing with the genocide in Nazi-occupied
Europe. Many of the largest Holocaust museums and archives have
excellent websites crammed with online exhibitions, digitised primary
sources, and thoughtful commentary. One such site is that of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
which provides extensive resources on all aspects of the Holocaust.

Many libraries and archives feature digitised primary source collections
on their sites, offering access to students and researchers everywhere.
One such collection is the British Library's
'Voices of the Holocaust' site,
which publishes audio files and transcripts of survivor testimonies.
An equally compelling site is Northwestern University's 'The last
expression: art and Auschwitz' site,
which publishes and explores art made in the concentration camps.
The 'Nuremberg Trials project'
published by Harvard University offers an enormous online archive
of digitised material on the post-war trials held by the Allied
powers, prosecuting those responsible for the Final Solution and
other Nazi war crimes.

The majority of Holocaust websites tend to focus on the Jewish
experience, and it can be harder to find resources dealing with
the other groups, including Roma, homosexuals, Poles and Communists,
who also faced persecution and genocide at the hands of the Nazi's.
'Holocaust forgotten'
is a useful starting point for information about all the non-Jewish
victims of the Holocaust, while sites such as 'The Nazi persecution
of homosexuals'
and 'O Porrajmos'
provide resources on the experiences of homosexuals and the Roma
respectively. 'O Porrajmos' offers a good mix of scholarly articles
and selected web links, while 'The Nazi persecution of homosexuals'
provides a detailed bibliography for researchers and students. A
more hopeful angle on the Holocaust can be found in sites like 'Daring
to resist',
which looks at those involved in resistance groups and rescue efforts
throughout the Second World War. Lastly, the Channel 4 site 'The
Holocaust on trial',
explores the issue of Holocaust denial, through the 2000 libel trial
between 'revisionist' historian David Irving and Deborah Lipstadt.

Website list

General

The website 'Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University
of Minnesota' presents information about the centre, established
in order to teach, research, and publicise issues connected to genocide.
It focuses on the Jewish Holocaust as well as on genocides and related
issues pertaining to the following groups: Roma and Sinti; Poles
and Slavs; Armenians; Native and Plains Indians; Ukrainians; and
Black Slaves in the USA. The site boasts a virtual museum, with
excellent links to relevant sites as well as an extensive list of
educational resources for teachers and lecturers on subjects such
as Raoul Wallenberg (to whom the site is dedicated) and teaching
the Armenian genocide. There are also digitized audio on-line testimonies
of Holocaust survivors and camp liberators. There is a virtual museum
featuring the images of and lectures by many artists. It is a rich
and fascinating site, which seeks to contextualise all aspects of
genocide. One of the best sections is entitled histories, narratives
and documents, and features images of Buchenwald, materials on Bolshevism,
and documentation of the Armenian genocide.

The website 'A cybrary of the Holocaust' is an excellent collection
of art, photos, poems, memories and factual information on the Holocausts
of the Second World War. It is easy to navigate and presents a variety
of information on varying aspects of the experiences of Jews, Slavs,
Roma and others during World War II. There are lesson plans and
resources for teachers working at secondary school level, including
a teaching guide.

A list of books by survivors is a useful selection of vibrant literature.
The website places excerpts on-line. Although the website primarily
aims to provide information, it also acts as a support site for
survivors and the children of survivors. There are accounts by survivors
and witnesses, many of which have not been published elsewhere,
and a discussion forum. The site is also enhanced by many images
and personal accounts. What makes this site even more valuable is
its coverage of non-Jewish experience of the Holocaust. There is
also a list of selected links to sites of a similar nature.

Professor Ben Austin's website on the Holocaust is published on
the Middle Tennessee State University website. Featuring a range
of resources relevant to the study of the Holocaust, this site is
aimed primarily at university students and their tutors. It is simply
laid out, and contains a variety of documents, some primary sources,
but mostly short essays on particular subjects. Among the topics
addressed are Kristallnacht, euthanasia, the Final Solution, specific
groups, such as children, homosexuals and Romany Gypsies, the Nuremberg
Trials, and Holocaust deniers. There is also a glossary of terms,
a chronology of events, and a selection of web links.

The website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is
an extensive online resource on the history of the Holocaust in
Nazi-occupied Europe. The museum is the United States' national
institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of
Holocaust history. The site is an amazing resource and provides
a comprehensive history of the Holocaust. While the emphasis is
mainly on the Jewish experience from 1933 to 1945, the persecution
and extermination of other groups such as homosexuals, Communists,
Jehovah's Witnesses, Slavs, and the handicapped is also included.
There is a dedicated education section that caters for teachers,
students, families, adults, and undergraduates, and there is also
a learning centre. In addition, the site features a well-pitched
introduction, personal histories, interactive maps, and online exhibitions.
The website also carries information about the museum's research
facilities, which include a library, archival collections and the
survivors' registry.

The 'Web genocide documentation centre' consists of a collection
of electronic texts relating to acts of genocide committed in the
twentieth century. Annotated links to content on other websites
are also provided. The site has a particular wealth of materials
to do with the Jewish Holocaust and the Second World War, along
with texts on the Armenian genocide, Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda
and Burundi, Sierra Leone, and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
Other sections include various conventions and statutes, book reviews,
records of war criminals, and so forth. The site has a particular
emphasis on providing primary materials. Most of the materials are
in English, although a handful of documents are in German.

This is an ambitious site with a good deal of material. A simple
search engine is provided to ease navigation. The presentation
of the site could, however, be a little tidier.

This website is published by an amateur historian, and provides
a range of excellent resources on women and the Holocaust. The site
aims to investigate the Final Solution and the Nazi's views on gender,
and looks at the experience of women as victims of genocide, and
also as the perpetrators and collaborators of the Nazi regime. The
site provides primary sources like survivor testimonies and poetry,
book and film reviews, a bibliography, and web links, as well as
a good range of both academic and general articles and essays. These
explore subjects like partisans and resistance fighters, forest-dwellers,
survivors' stories, and women involved in the Nazi regime.

Jewish experience

The website of the 'The Beth Shalom Holocaust web centre' is a
central hub for three main sites: Holocaustcentre.net; holocausthistory.net;
and holocaustbookstore.net. It also collaborates with project sites
such as the Aegis Genocide Prevention Initiative and Remembering
for the Future – academic research. It is supported by the
Association of Jewish Refugees and the Pears Family Trust. The Holocaust
Centre, Beth Shalom is based in Nottingham and is Britain's first
dedicated Holocaust memorial and education centre. It has a permanent
exhibition and houses a library and research facilities.

The centre is now open to the public and the site provides details
on its location and opening hours. The site runs educational tours,
and publishes a journal 'Perspectives' three times a year. The
sister site Holocaust History is aimed at school pupils. This site
is particularly useful for those teaching or studying the Holocaust
or Second World War history.

'Daring to resist' is the companion website to a PBS film that
traces the lives of three Jewish women who worked in resistance
against the Nazi regime in Europe during the Second World War. The
site provides resources on the experiences of the three women who
survived the Nazi occupation in the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland,
and who worked in resistance and partisan groups to save Jews from
the ghettos and concentration camps. A biography of each woman is
available, along with a video clip of them talking about their lives.
There is also an interactive timeline that lists the movements of
the women alongside the events taking place in Europe during World
War II. Containing further information is the teacher's guide, which
provides a range of resources on the programme. It is well structured,
including background information about the Nazi persecution of Jewish
people and the Holocaust, suggested areas of study and questions,
a transcript of the film, a glossary, a bibliography, and a useful
list of related websites.

'Last expression: art from Auschwitz' is a project dedicated to
exploring the 'roles, functions, meanings and making of art in the
Nazi concentration camps of the Second World War, focusing on the
notorious site of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Published by the Mary and
Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, the website
is a rich resource of images and essays. Of particular interest
are the interviews with artists of the concentration camps, such
as Yehuda Bacon and Jozef Szajna. Complete with audio and video
material, 'Last expression' utilises the full capability of multimedia
in order to explore fully the issues surrounding the Holocaust and
aesthetic activity. Scholars working in Jewish studies, history
or aesthetics are likely to find this site to be of interest.

'Life in shadows' is a moving online exhibition published by the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, concerned with the experiences
of Jewish children who were in hiding during the Nazi occupation
of Europe. The exhibition is impressive and very sophisticated,
skilfully combining video clips, primary documents, digitised artefacts,
and text to teach users about child survivors of the Holocaust.
The sections of the exhibition cover the survival chances of children,
the choices made by families to separate, the stories of people
who were in hiding, and the efforts to reunite families after the
Second World War ended.

A new website resource for holocaust education, developed out of Professor Nik Wachsmann's research for his award winning book: KL. A history of the Nazi Concentration Camps (2015). The website was developed in collaboration with the Wiener Library and the UCL Centre for Holocaust Studies, and provides a database, archive and teaching resources that reveal individual experiences and memories from the camps and new details of Nazi crimes.

Non-Jewish groups

The website 'Holocaust history: non-Jewish victims (Holocaust
forgotten)' is available in both Polish and English versions. The
site aims to disseminate information about the non-Jewish victims
of the Holocaust, which number over 5 million. The author of the
site (Terese Schwartz-Pencak) is widely published on the subject,
is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, and has converted to Judaism.
The site features extracts from Nuremberg Trial documentation and
an excellent page of links to resources on the Holocaust. Individual
stories of survivors, along with pictures and images, enhance the
site. Those given a voice here, Afro-Europeans, Roma and Sinti,
Poles, homosexuals, the disabled, and Jehovah's Witnesses, are among
those frequently by-passed by Holocaust histories. The site is of
use to those seeking an individual insight into the Holocaust and
those who were both victims and heroes.

This is one of the online exhibitions on the website of the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and it deals with the Nazi campaign
of persecution and violence against German homosexuals. The site
is easy to navigate and well presented, and provides a comprehensive
overview of the experiences of gay men in Nazi Germany. The chronological
chapters take the user through the years of Nazi government and
the measures against homosexuals, and the text is interspersed with
photographs, artefacts and video clips. In addition to this there
are related articles that deal with other areas of the Nazi regime
and those it persecuted, links to a bibliography, links to further
online resources, and a teacher’s section.

This is a straightforward website published by professional historian
Gerard Koskovich. On it is published a detailed bibliography of
primary and secondary sources on the persecution of homosexuals
in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945. The bibliography lists books and articles
alphabetically, and provides a lively and opinionated review of
each source, mentioning how much relevant material there is, and
how helpful it is to researchers. There is also a much shorter separate
listing of documentary films and unpublished oral histories.

This website is published as part of the 'Patrin web journal',
which is dedicated to Romani history and culture. This part of the
site, 'O Porrajmos', provides a gateway to a range of resources
on the Roma genocide in Nazi Germany. O Porrajmos is the Romani
name for the Holocaust, and directly translated means 'the devouring'.
On the site is a good selection of scholarly articles on the experience
of the Gypsies during World War II, including some by the leading
Roma academic Ian Hancock. The site also features a good number
of links to other relevant websites. There is a warning at the beginning
of the website that some people may find the material distressing.

Oral histories

The 'Fortunoff video archive for Holocaust testimonies' is based
in the manuscripts and archives department at Yale University Library.
It is a video archive of more than 2,400 interviews with Holocaust
survivors, telling of their experiences under Nazi occupation. The
site provides a detailed background to the project and the activities
of the archive, as well as information about the educational resources
and publications available for use by teachers. In addition it is
possible to view on the site video excerpts from the archive in
Quicktime, or as audio files. These are accompanied by transcripts,
and include testimonies from Jewish people, American witnesses,
and Gypsy internees. Although it is not possible to view the rest
of the archive footage on the site, you can search the catalogue
using Orbis, the online catalogue for Yale University Library.

'Holocaust personal histories' is an online exhibition published
by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Composed entirely
of oral history testimonies of people who survived the Holocaust,
this is an extremely sobering and moving exhibition. The interviews
are divided into twelve separate categories, looking in turn at
children, refugees, survival, ghettos, resistance, liberation, deportations,
camps, aid and escape, the aftermath, and individuals. The testimonies
are mainly those of Jewish people who lived through the Nazi occupation
of Europe, and the Final Solution, their programme of genocide.
The accounts can either be viewed as text or on video, which requires
Real Player to access.

'Voices of the Holocaust' is a virtual exhibition published by
the British Library. The exhibition is centred around recordings
of Holocaust survivors' memories, made as part of the British Library's
Sound Archives Oral History Programme. Designed for use by school-age
students, it is a well-conceived project and valuable for students
at many different levels of education. The recordings cover the
Jewish experience in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, dealing with
deportations, the ghettos, resistance, concentration camps, death
marches, and liberation. These are accompanied by background material
in the form of maps, transcripts of the audio files, a timeline,
and a glossary, and there are student activities and teachers notes
too.

Nuremberg

The International Military Tribunal for Germany website provides
access to an amazing amount of information and original texts about
the Nuremberg Trial of major German war criminals, 1945-1946 (at
the end of the Second World War). This resource is part of The Avalon
Project at the Yale Law School, (which mounts digital documents
relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy
and government). Value is added throughout by linking to supporting
documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.

Each section of The Nuremberg Trials collection provides an insight
into one of the most important trials in 20th century history, by
displaying information in the following categories: motions, orders,
presentation of cases, testimony of witnesses, final report. Also
included are supporting documentation and Internet links about 'Nazi
conspiracy and aggression' (before and during World War II), and
on the Jewish genocide, the Holocaust and the persecution of religious
and other minorities.

The 'Nuremberg Trials project' is an endeavour run by Harvard
Law School Library to digitise its one million pages of documents
relating to the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1949). The trial of military
and political leaders of Nazi Germany, after the Second World War,
occurred before an International Military Tribunal and several US
Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The documents that remain include
trial manuscripts; legal briefs; document books; and evidence files.
This digital project hopes to create and present images of full-text
versions of its Nuremberg documents, along with analytical information
about each document and general commentary on the trials themselves.
23,000 pages have currently been made available on the site. The
documents are presented comprehensively with a photstat of the original;
a German typescript; an English translation; and analysis of the
document. The site provides information on the leaders of the Nazi
regime including key personnel in: government (the Reich Chancellery
and ministries); the SS; the National Socialist German Workers Party;
and the Wehrmacht. Details of primary and secondary sources, plus
links to other sites, provide further information related to the
Nuremberg Trials.

(Courtesy of Humbul – Joanne O’Shea)

Holocaust denial

The 'Holocaust history project' consists of a collection of documents
and essays concerning the genocide of the Jews by the German Nazis
during the Second World War. The site's authors pay especial attention
to refuting the arguments of Holocaust-deniers such as David Irving.

The site contains a number of reproductions of documents contemporaneous
with World War II. Most of these are in English translation, and
several are also available as digital image captures of the original
German documents. Primary documents of particular note include:
several volumes of the proceedings of the International Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg; reports on the effects of Prussic Acid; letters
between Nazi officials; and a number of documents from the Auschwitz
concentration camp.

Aside from these documents, there are a number of good secondary
essays posted on the site. These vary in length from around 1,000
to 30,000 words, and are all in scholarly format with footnotes.
Some of the essays include images and recordings. Many of the essays
are on various aspects of the Auschwitz camp. Other subjects include:
David Irving; the 'Einsatzgruppen'; the notorious propaganda film,
'The Eternal Jew'; the decision behind and the timing of 'the final
solution'; and the position of the Jews with regards to Stalin and
Bolshevik Russia.

This is a fine site that should certainly be visited by anyone
studying the Holocaust. The material is interesting and well written,
and argues against the Holocaust-deniers with some vigour.

This Channel 4 website 'The Holocaust on trial', arising from the
David Irving trial, is divided into four main sections. The first
section relates directly to the Irving trial outlining some of the
issues raised by the trial and providing information on Irving and
Deborah Lipstadt. The second part of the website outlines what is
meant by Holocaust denial and gives details of some Holocaust deniers.
The third section of the site takes the form of a timeline of both
the growth of public awareness of the Holocaust and the growth of
Holocaust denial during the Second World War to 2000. The fourth
section of the site has details of other relevant resources - information
on books and links to websites are provided. The 'Holocaust on trial'
website has also published an essay by David Cesarani, Professor
of Modern Jewish History at Southampton University and Director
of the Wiener Library in London, on 'The media: why the media missed
the point'.

The identity card of a Jewish woman. The card is stamped with a 'J' following a 1938 Nazi regulation.